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Twin Bombs Kill Dozens in Algiers

Rescue workers at the scene of the bombings in Algiers.Credit
Fayez Nureldine/Agence France-Presse—Getty Images

ALGIERS — Twin car bombs near United Nations offices and an Algerian government building killed dozens of people Tuesday in what may have been the deadliest attack here in more than a decade.

Two European diplomats in Algiers said that reports from rescue and medical workers led them to believe that 60 or more people had died. By Tuesday evening, 26 deaths had been confirmed by the Algerian Interior Ministry.

The terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility, posting a message on Islamist Web sites with photographs of two men it claimed were suicide bombers who carried out the attacks, which it said were aimed at “the Crusaders and their agents, the slaves of America and the sons of France.”

Some of the dead were students aboard a bus that was on its way to a university when it was struck by the first car bomb. Late Tuesday night, about 200 people huddled outside the police perimeter as rescue workers in dusty overalls and helmets worked to recover those still trapped inside.

One woman said she had been there since the morning and was still waiting for news of two cousins and a friend who worked in the building. “We’ve had no news yet, no sign of life,” she said as a friend comforted her. While she spoke, a caravan of trucks towed away burned-out cars and an ambulance passed carrying a body in a white bag.

Marie Okabe, the deputy spokeswoman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said preliminary figures showed that at least 11 United Nations staff members had died and that the organization was trying to account for several others who were missing.

“Our people are working with Algerian authorities in pulling people from the rubble,” she told reporters at a news briefing in New York.

Mr. Ban, who was at a climate change conference in Bali, issued a statement condemning the bombing as “base, indecent and unjustifiable by even the most barbarous political standard.” He said he had ordered an immediate review of United Nations security precautions and policies in Algeria.

The first bomb exploded shortly before 9:30 a.m. outside Algeria’s Constitutional Council in the Ben Aknoun neighborhood. The council oversees the country’s elections. The bomb stripped away the facade of the white Moorish-style building, which had only recently been built by a Chinese construction company. The bus carrying the students who were killed was on its way to the nearby Ben Aknoun university campus when the explosion occurred.

The bomb near the United Nations building exploded about 10 minutes later on narrow Émile Payen Street, collapsing much of the white multistory building and hurling chunks of rubble across the street. It left the roadway carpeted for blocks with shattered glass.

The organizations housed in the damaged building include the United Nations Development Program, the World Food Program, the Population Fund, the International Labor Organization and the Industrial Development Organization, as well as the Safety and Security Office and the Public Information offices.

The blast sheered the front walls off nearby buildings, including one housing the United Nations refugee agency. At least one staff member was killed there.

Ms. Okabe said the United Nations had 19 permanent international staff members in Algeria and 21 temporary ones. She said the United Nations employed 110 local staff members in the country.

It was the first time that a recent bombing campaign by Islamist militants had touched the area, a quiet residential neighborhood known as Hydra, which is home to many embassies and their diplomats, on the so-called heights of Algiers. While security in the area is relatively tight, traffic was not restricted in front of the United Nations building.

Photo

The Constitutional Court building in Algiers after the bombing on Tuesday.Credit
Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

The message posted by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb identified one of the men it said was a bomber as Ibrahim Abu Uthman, who had a gray moustache and appeared to be in his 50s. The second, identified as Abdul Rahman Abu Abdul Nasser Al-Aassemi, was younger and smiling. The message said each detonated a truck containing about 1,800 pounds of explosives.

Several witnesses reported seeing a white truck or van drive into the United Nations compound moments before the blast.

President Bush condemned the attacks, calling them “senseless violence.”

“The United States stands with the people of Algeria, as well as the United Nations, as they deal with this senseless violence,” the White House said in a statement. The United States military and intelligence agencies have been active in helping Algeria combat terrorist threats.

The 11th has become a day of choice for major Islamic terrorist attacks, beginning with those in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, followed by one in Djerba, Tunisia, on April 11, 2002, and one in Madrid on March 11, 2004. On April 11, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb exploded two car bombs in the capital, killing 33.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was founded in 1998 as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, an offshoot of the Armed Islamic Group, which along with other Islamist guerrilla forces fought a brutal decade-long civil war after the Algerian military canceled elections in early 1992 because an Islamist party was poised to win.

The group’s stated aim is to overthrow the government and install an Islamic theocracy in Algeria and throughout North Africa.

In 2003, a leader of the Salafist group in southern Algeria kidnapped 32 European tourists, some of whom were released for a ransom of about $7.3 million, paid by Germany.

Officials say the group’s leader, Amari Saifi, bought weapons and recruited fighters before the United States military helped corner and catch him in 2004. He is now serving a life sentence in Algeria.

While most estimates put the current membership of the group in the hundreds, it has survived more than a decade of Algerian government attempts to eradicate it. It is now the best organized and best financed terrorist group in the region.

Last year, on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Qaeda chose the Salafist group as its representative in North Africa. In January, the group reciprocated by switching its name to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, saying Mr. bin Laden had ordered the change.

Following the name change, the group became increasingly active with a string of bombings across the country.

A Sept. 6 attack during President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s visit to the eastern city of Batna killed 22 people, and a suicide-bombing two days later on a coast guard barracks in the town of Dellys left at least 28 dead.

The government has responded with a counterinsurgency campaign that has killed dozens of the group’s members and captured several of their leaders.

Under the leadership of Abdelmalek Droukdel, the group has also made an effort to emerge as part of the global Islamic jihad and now draws support from beyond Algeria’s borders.

Javier Jordán, director of Athena Intelligence, a Spanish research group focused on Islamist issues, said intelligence sources had tracked Islamists traveling between Algeria and the Afghan-Pakistani border region or Iraq. “This is not just a question of a new brand, but of operational links,” he said.